Steven Gore - Power Blind

She lowered her hand and fell silent. After a few seconds she nodded as though she’d found the just right words to express her thoughts, and said, “I’m thinking it probably would’ve been better if you’d been born a Yaqui.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because of the way your mind works. It’s just like how we approach the world. It’s even in our language. In English you say, ‘I see the earth.’ The emphasis is on the person seeing, the filtering through the mind. In Yaqui we say, Inepo bwia vitchu, I earth see. The emphasis is on us facing the thing as it exists in the world. It makes us a humble people.”

Gage was quick to respond. “Too humble.”

As a child, Gage had watched Yaquis traveling through Nogales from Mexico on their annual Easter migration, wondering whether they were like the Bedouins he was reading about in Lawrence of Arabia, except unarmed and nearly defeated, run out of Mexico by a government attempting to break their will and harassed by immigration agents and police at the border. They were only safe when they arrived at a patch of desert a six-year-old Apache schoolmate of Gage’s once called a resignation, instead of a reservation. Gage remembered driving up to Tucson from Nogales with his father in the 1960s, when he went to stand with Yaquis at city council meetings protesting real estate developers encroaching Old Pascua village, a collection of dusty one-room shacks and shotgun brick houses founded by refugees fleeing Mexican government persecution.

“But we survived,” Tansy said.

“Maybe the tribe should’ve gotten a cut from the Carlos Castaneda books,” Gage said, finally offering a smile back. “And made some money selling tickets to watch him and that Yaqui shaman turn into crows and fly around the Sedona vortexes.”

“Carlos who? I don’t recall such a person dropping by, as a man or a bird. And the only vortex any Yaqui ever saw was a dust devil.”

Gage shook his head in mock sadness.

“Lots of new age folks in San Francisco will be really disappointed to learn that.”

“Not from me. When I see them heading my way, I pretend I’m a Navajo.”

Gage had been the only one at the San Francisco Police Department who knew why they all called him Spike.

Homicide Lieutenant Humberto Pacheco, too short to play volleyball when he and Gage were growing up together, and now looking more like a mallet than a nail, lumbered through the entrance of the Fiesta Brava Taqueria on Mission Street a little after 1:30 P.M. Tan sports coat, brown pants, pale yellow shirt, and a blue tie painted with tiny footballs. He didn’t pause to survey the interior of the storefront restaurant before heading toward a table in the far corner where Gage already sat. The rest of the tables were empty, the lunch crowd having already moved on.

Spike waved to their usual waiter, then dropped a manila envelope onto the table and sat down to the right of Gage, a plate of chicken in chili-laced cream sauce already cooling before him. A warming Coke stood next to it.

“Sorry I’m late,” Spike said. “I got hung up at a meeting with the chief. The mayor is pissed because some Japanese woman got mugged coming out of the St. Francis Hotel. Cut up pretty bad. He’s worried about losing the Asian tourist business.”

Gage set down his fork. “I’ve got an idea. Maybe he should hire the homeless to paint targets on the Nicaraguans and Sudanese so the crooks would know who he wants mugged.”

Spike grinned. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You did, you just didn’t say it because you know the chief doesn’t appreciate that kind of sarcasm.” Gage pointed at Spike’s plate. “You want it heated up?”

Spike mixed a little of the sauce with the rice, then tasted it. “No, it’s okay.” He tilted his head toward the half-eaten roasted birra in front of Gage. “You’re still the only white guy I know who eats goat.”

Spike dug into his chicken while Gage opened the envelope and thumbed through the thirty pages of police reports about Palmer’s shooting.

“I appreciate you taking over the case yourself instead of leaving it with your underlings,” Gage said. “Anything else besides what’s in here?”

“There’s also a ballistics check on the slug. A. 38. Five lands and grooves, right twist. Could be just about any Saturday night special.”

“What about the shooter?”

“Charlie gave us almost nothing to go on. The guy he described couldn’t have been more average if Charlie had made him up.”

“And that’s what you think he did?”

“The uniforms at the scene pushed him real hard for a description-a dying declaration in case he didn’t survive. All they got was a cardboard John Doe. At first I thought maybe shock scrambled his brain, but it didn’t get any better when I went to see him two days later. It was like he did some kind of statistical survey and came up with the mean…” Spike cocked his head and squinted toward the ceiling, then looked back at Gage. “Is it mean or median?”

“I think it’s called the mode. Mode is what there’s most of.”

Spike smiled. “Mr. Salazar will be thrilled to know ninth grade math stuck.” He took a sip of his Coke. “It’s like Charlie came up with the mode, and then said, ‘That’s the guy.’ ”

“You have a theory?”

“I think he didn’t want us to catch him.”

“And do it himself after he got better?”

“Except he didn’t get better. When I called Socorro last week, the doctor had just told him he’d recovered as much as he ever would. Might not get worse, but wouldn’t get better. He was never gonna work again, that’s for sure. Maybe never even get out of bed.”

“That must be why he called me.”

Spike shook his head. “I don’t think so. He knew you’re not a vigilante. He had to have guessed you’d be doing exactly what you’re doing, not roaming the streets with a six-shooter.”

“Then why didn’t he reach out to you if he changed his mind and wanted to get the guy?”

Spike shrugged. “Maybe it has to do with one of his cases. Attorney-client privilege and all that.” He aimed his fork at the file. “You know what he was working on the day he was shot? He wouldn’t tell me.”

“A tax evasion case. Yachts. He was interviewing marine appraisers.”

“Like those car donation scams?”

“But in the multimillion-dollar range. And knowing Charlie, he was probably trying to get one of them to commit perjury by testifying the appraisals were accurate.”

Gage caught Spike’s eye, then glanced toward the glass entrance doors. Two silver-adorned Jalisco cowboys entered, dressed in the style of their home state in Mexico. Silver belt buckles, silver toe tips on rattlesnake-skin boots, silver bands on their hats, and silver buttons and lapel points on their shirts. The men paused just inside the door and scanned the restaurant, then took a small table near the front window. One slid a black briefcase underneath, while the other pulled out a cell phone, punched in a number, spoke a few words, and disconnected.

“Must be door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen,” Gage said, as a waiter delivered the men a basket of tortilla chips and salsa.

Spike slipped in a Bluetooth earpiece, punched in a number on his cell phone, and turned slightly away and passed on his location and a description of the Jaliscos. He rested his phone on the table, waited until the men were both looking down and reaching for chips, and then snapped a photo of them and sent it.

“It’s just like riding a bike, isn’t it?” Spike said.

“Don’t you ever just want to get off it at least long enough to enjoy a meal?”

“Can’t. It’s like having the television on all the time in the back of your head.”